ABSTRACT

When I finished graduate school in 1976, my father flew East so that we could meet and drive back to California together. We planned to hook-up in Chicago and head West, taking our time, a father-and-son road trip. I filled my little Japanese-import station wagon with my few belongings—a Persian rug, a bent-wood rocker, a couple of boxes of books, and a certificate declaring me a newly minted Ph.D., said goodbye to New Haven, Connecticut (where I had gone to school), and drove to the Windy City, where my father was spending a few days visiting old friends and family. After a night at my aunt and uncle’s, Dad and I headed out for our big adventure.